Cat Blog Friday

Official Kuro 8 x 10 (sideways) glossy by James J. Kriegsmann, N.Y.

Sue Raney alert

Happy to learn from jazz singer Sue Raney that she will be making a rare local L.A. appearance next Wednesday, October 26th, at Herb Alpert's spectacular Bel Air boite, Vibrato. According to their web site, Sue will be performing from 9 pm to closing (their web site says 6 pm but that is incorrect), and will be accompanied by Alan Broadbent, piano; Pat Senatore, bass; and the redoubtable Kendall Kay on drums.

These days, Sue, who is soon to go into the studio to record a new CD (two maybe?), mostly appears in symphonic pops concerts, so this date offers an increasingly rare opportunity to hear her in this type of intimate environment. I saw her a year or so ago in concert in Thousand Oaks, CA and she brought new meaning to the phrase "Time has stood still" except for the part about her artistry, which still continues to evolve.

Vibrato is located at 2930 Beverly Glen Circle in Bel Air. Tends to be a tad pricey, but the food and service are great and so is the caliber of performers, which in the recent past has included Dave Frishberg, Michel Legrand, Toots Thielemans, Pinky Winters, Bob Florence, and, well, I guess you get the picture.

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Jackie Paris "found"

Jackie Paris must be the most under-appreciated and unknown, but inarguably great, artist in the entire canon of jazz singing. Since the mid-1940s, followers of that scene have never ceased to wonder why he didn't "happen." He was supposed to have been a shoe-in, but somehow it was not to be. And so, he swingingly soldiered on for more than a half-century with a dozen or so one-offs on various record labels, and increasingly peripatetically in less than the highest of profile venues.

When I finally saw Paris perform "live" in L.A. in the early 1990s (on a double bill with Chris Connor!), he was absolutely at the peak of his powers. Leading me to wonder more than ever exactly how his career had failed to ignite the way that most jazz critics and Paris' fans had predicted all those years. Thus, I set out to track him down, did so rather easily thanks to the powers of the internet, and we began a correspondence that culminated in his sending me (unbidden) three Japan-only CDs that I hadn't even known existed.

And when Paris died on June 17, 2004 at age 79, only (it seemed to me like) days after giving what might have been his most well reviewed gig ever (see Variety 3/15/04), it was another one of those cosmic jokes that I always turn to for renewed proof of the randomness and meaninglessness of it all.

Fortunately, Paris did not die alone and forgotten like so many overlooked artists, but instead surrounded by, among others, several filmmaker-friends who had been looking after him for the last few months of his life.

Cat Blog Friday

Kuro in the Zone

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